Cream Cheese Pancakes and Lemon Curd

I made pancakes on Sunday. These pancakes, to be precise. Or, basically anyway. The stores are closed on Sunday and really I was in no mood to leave the house, so I omitted the lemon and blueberries (blueberries are also $1 a berry here). Of course, there is no buttermilk to be had in the northern reaches of Hokkaido. I substituted half whole milk and half heavy cream. Honestly, I will substitute heavy cream for any liquid, in any recipe.

I used a pastry blender to incorporate the cream cheese. It shouldn’t be completely blended, you want little pockets of cream cheese in the finished product. A bite into these perfectly fat little pancakes rewards with silky mouthfuls of cream cheese. These are thick and fluffy and really really rich. I ate two, and two was too many. Really, when considering making these (meaning my heavy cream-filled version), you just need to ask yourself what kind of pancake girl, man, or horse you are. I like the thick, creamy, but not overly dense variety (yogurt pancakes being my favorite), so these suited me.

I think a nice, tart strawberry reduction and some crisp bacon would have provided the appropriate balance and cut through the richness, but they’re more than satisfying with warm maple syrup and a pat of sweet Hokkaido butter (don’t think about skipping the butter, I’m watching you…. is fattly an adverb? Can it be? It’s so much more sinister and obese than fattily). I cooked the rest of the pancakes and dolloped some of my leftover lemon curd in the middle, They’re in the freezer, waiting. Fattly, if you will.

The many uses of lemon curd. Generally, to be put upon a spoon and inserted into the mouth. I like this recipe a lot, Alton Brown generally being my go-to for everything, from carrot cakes to being a psychic wizard. I’ve actually made this recipe a lot and, like the people in the comments, never had the curd thicken properly (although honestly this isn’t a problem, it will thicken fine when it cools). This time it actually thickened when it was supposed to. This may or may not be beneficial, but I think the difference was using a metal bowl and also properly whisking it the entire time instead of just stirring. Worth a try!